Richard Branson, Tom Cruise, Darcy Bussell and Noel Gallagher are among the celebrity dyslexics mentioned on the website of the British Dyslexia Association.  But what does it mean to be dyslexic?  Pod Academy's Lee Millam went to find out.

A new book, The Dyslexia Debate, says the term dyslexia is a broad and meaningless label.  The book also suggests that children are often labelled dyslexic when exhibiting a range of different reading difficulties.  One of the authors is Prof Julian Elliot from Durham University.

Julian Elliot:  One of the things that happens quite often when a youngster is struggling with their reading is that some well meaning soul will come along and say, ‘ Have you ever though that little Jimmy might be dyslexic? Perhaps you should send him off for dyslexa assessment and see whether he is.  If he is, great!’

There are all sorts of problems with that. Firstly, making a diagnosis of dyslexia is not scientific because the criteria used vary greatly from one person to another.  In other words, what one person thinks is Dyslexia, another person doesn’t.

So firstly you can’t make a decision in a clear , consistent way about whether a child is dyslexic.  Secondly, even if you do determine that a child is dyslexic, having done that there is no educational intervention or treatment which you’d do differently for that child than you would do for any other child who is struggling to learn to read.  There are some weird and whacky interventions but none of those have the support of academic scientific research.’

Lee Millam:  But having a test and a diagnosis for dyslexia can be a positive thing as we hear now from Patricia Simmonds.

Patricia Simmonds: I was diagnosed in, probably, 1997 when I went to college.  It was the first time I was diagnosed with dyslexia.

LM: How old were you at the time?

PS: I was probably 17 or 18.

LM: So you went through the whole school experience being dyslexic but not knowing it?

PS:  Yes, I did.  At primary school they didn’t give me any extra help, but they knew I had difficulties with reading and writing, so maybe the teacher might take more time working with me.  At secondary school I think they realised I wasn’t learning like the other children, I went to an all girls school, and my tutor realised I needed extra help with, again, my reading and writing.  And I believe I’d have been about 12 when I started getting extra support.  At times it would be in the classroom or I’d be taken out of the classroom and sit with a tutor and just go though some reading.

LM: So you were given extra support at school.  Did that help?

PS: Yes it did! It was still a bit difficult because I didn’t know why I needed extra help.  Nobody could explain it to me.  I knew I was struggling but it was as if I was different from the other kids in the class, because I had to be taken out of the classroom to get the extra help (which I really appreciated).

It was good to have someone who could spend one to one time with me, to go through everything, because I felt confused in the classroom when the teacher would talk about something and I’d have to sit down and present a piece of work.  And then I’d always struggle and I couldn’t quite work out why.  So  I found it helpful sitting with a tutor one to one and them going through things with me.

LM: So you were given this extra help.  How were you feeling?

PS: I was really pleased about it. I was thinking ‘fantastic, I can start to understand things or start to do the work a lot easier.  I was really grateful for the extra help, but it did make me feel outside the group.  I’d be taken out of the class for these one to one sessions, on occasion someone would sit in the room, but that was more embarrassing for me – so to be ta...